African Mountains

Mountains play an important role in economic development, poverty alleviation and environmental protection not only for upland areas but also for the lowlands. Mountains also provide a wide range of critical and indispensable ecological goods and services for a significant number of people in Africa. These include water for agriculture, hydropower, domestic and industrial use, ecotourism, etc. However they are among the most disadvantaged regions in the world with some of the highest poverty rates. Communities and ecosystems in mountain areas are also among those most vulnerable to climate change, variability and related risks. Climate change, combined with reduced resilience (amongst other things) exacerbates the already existing challenges and increases pressure on mountain people and ecosystems, further enforcing unsustainable land management practices and land abandonment which in turn jeopardises the provision of key mountain services.

Mountains play an important role in economic development, poverty alleviation and environmental protection not only for upland areas but also for the lowlands. Mountains also provide a wide range of critical and indispensable ecological goods and services for a significant number of people in Africa. These include water for agriculture, hydropower, domestic and industrial use, ecotourism, etc. However they are among the most disadvantaged regions in the world with some of the highest poverty rates. Communities and ecosystems in mountain areas are also among those most vulnerable to climate change and related risks. Climate change, combined with reduced resilience (amongst other things) exacerbates the already existing challenges and increases pressure on mountain people and ecosystems. The latter induce unsustainable land management practices and land abandonment which in turn jeopardizes the provision of key mountain services. Climate change further leads to flooding, droughts and soil erosion.

With financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), ARCOS is implementing in Africa a global initiative termed Sustainable Mountain Development for Global Change (SMD4GC). The overall goal of this programme is to contribute to Sustainable Mountain Development under uncertain changes in climatic, environmental and socio-economic conditions, focusing on poverty and risk reduction. Under this programme, an information Portal has been developed to promote exchange and information sharing on the drivers of change in African mountains and facilitate the management and dissemination of the information generated by research and other processes going on onto the continent. You can browse information publications related to African mountains, explore published biodiversity data that are related to African mountains or take advantage of the various interactive mapping features that help users visualize available mountains related resources available through online database (http://arbims.arcosnetwork.org/out.libraries.php ).